Dear Commons Community,

The following appeared in the July 6^th online edition of Education Week.  It was forwarded to me by my colleague,  Maryann Polesinelli, New York City Depratment of Education.  The letter provides DeVos’ views on privatization of public education and refers to a new Department of Education and the Workforce.  It should be mentioned that her need to “catch up” is based on a terribly flawed system of international testing. 

Tony   

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The U.S. secretary of education reflects on lessons from her trip abroad

By Betsy DeVos

Education and workforce policies have always been intimately linked, yet for decades the federal government has addressed them separately with two different departments. President Donald Trump recently announced a bold plan to remedy that with a new Department of Education and the Workforce that would reduce the federal footprint in education and make the federal government more responsive to the full range of needs faced by American students and workers. It would also help catch us up to how students in other countries pursue their education.

I saw such approaches during my first international trip as the U.S. secretary of education to schools in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Each country takes a holistic approach to education to prepare students for career and life success. But it might be surprising to learn one topic didn’t come up: school choice.

I visited several different schools that are providing new and exciting learning opportunities for students at all levels. But “school choice” doesn’t dominate the conversation in these countries, because freedom in education isn’t controversial—it’s common sense. In the United States, some view offering families the freedom to make educational decisions with contempt. Defenders of the status quo fear that greater choice for parents and flexibility for educators will lead to underfunded schools and ultimately harm student performance.

In the countries I visited, education is oriented around the distinct needs of each student. In the Netherlands, freedom in education is enshrined in the constitution, which requires that the state provide equal funding for both publicly run and private schools. Two-thirds of students in the Netherlands attend schools that are privately run and taxpayer funded.

The Dutch approach empowers educators and parents by encouraging local autonomy in the classroom. This autonomy creates a wealth of options from which families can choose. Different approaches to student instruction are crucial for educational freedom to be meaningful.

I think of my visit to Imelda Primary School in Rotterdam. This Catholic school’s faith-based education focuses on respect and service to community. It also infuses the arts into all aspects of instruction, helping students understand abstract concepts and think critically.

In England, greater autonomy at the school level has been encouraged with the creation of “academies,” similar to charter schools in the United States, and “free schools,” both of which are granted significantly more flexibility for educators. Under Prime Minister David Cameron, the number of academies greatly increased, and free schools were created to serve as incubators of innovation and improve student achievement. Today, more than 70 percent of secondary schools in England have adopted the academy or free school model.

One school that stood out was the Grey Coat Hospital School in London, which reorganized as an academy in 2012. A girls-school run by the Church of England, GCHS reorganized as an academy in 2012, which allows the school greater autonomy to meet the needs and interests of its students. Students develop their own ideas for long-term projects and are encouraged to be independent through open-ended assignments and practical workshops, preparing them for the next stage of their education journey.

Switzerland is known for its robust apprenticeship program, with more than two-thirds of high school students engaged in one of the roughly 300 government-recognized apprenticeships. We saw the efficacy of this approach at Asea Brown Boveri’s plant in Zurich. ABB is one of many companies that partner with the country’s education system to offer students experience in high-earning fields like machinery and electronics. Students are exposed to many rewarding career paths, but they also have the choice to pursue an education at a traditional university. It’s not an “either/or” decision—as the Swiss say, “there are no dead ends in Switzerland’s education system.”

Switzerland, the Netherlands and the U.K. are proud of their education systems, but they don’t rest on their laurels—they continually look to improve. The data demonstrates the effectiveness of their approaches. In science and math, students in Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom outperformed U.S. students on the most recent Program for International Student Assessment. The United States ranked 23rd in reading, 25th in science, and 40th in math. If we finished 40th in the Olympics there’d be a national outcry!

Families need more freedom to choose their child’s education and educators must be empowered to innovate, or we will continue to lag behind the rest of the world. In the countries I visited, “private” and “public” schools alike are each valued and recognized for educating students in meaningful ways, thus contributing to the public good. Families are afforded the respect to choose which school will best meet their child’s educational needs. Students are exposed to many paths and given the tools to pursue their interests.

Now, simply copying European approaches will not be sufficient—American communities have their own unique challenges and needs. But the Netherlands and the United Kingdom show that high student achievement is possible with robust parental choice and flexibility for educators. Switzerland shows the benefit of giving students a wide variety of career options through apprenticeships. Most importantly, these countries show that a commitment to freedom in education can produce student success.

For the United States, lasting and positive changes to education cannot and should not be mandated by the federal government. We’ve tried that before—such as with No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and School Improvement Grants—with little to no success. And when the U.S. Department of Education was founded, it was charged to “prohibit federal control of education.” That’s a charge I take seriously.

Instead, forward-thinking states and school districts should take note of the effective approaches found abroad, and they should consider how they can extend educational freedom to their own constituents.

States and school districts should empower families with more options to find the best fit for their children—whether through open enrollment, charter schools, tax credit scholarships, vouchers, portable student funding, or other mechanisms.

States and school districts can empower educators with greater flexibility to meet the needs of the students they serve. That means reducing the paperwork burden on classroom teachers and letting them do what they do best: teach. It means abandoning a one-size-fits-all approach to instruction. And it means compensating great teachers well.

Finally, and perhaps most critically, we must ask ourselves who should have the greater say in education: students and their families, or the nation’s most entrenched status quo? The countries I visited have answered that question on the side of students. Americans should demand the same.

Dear Commons Community,

President Trump said yesterday that he accepted Scott Pruitt’s resignation as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. Pruitt was involved in a series of controversies that centered on lavish spending, ethical lapses and his management decisions. Below is Pruitt’s resignation letter to Trump.  It is ridiculous in parts with references to “God’s providences.”

Reacting to the news that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned Thursday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a one-word statement, attributed to Executive Director Noah Bookbinder: “Good.” 

At the time of his resignation, Pruitt was facing at least 18 federal investigations for his conduct. That includes renting a Capitol Hill condo at well below market rates with clear links to a gas industry lobbying firm; forcing out EPA officials who questioned his “unusually large spending” habits and allegedly forcing aides to find his wife a job with a minimum $200,000 salary.  

Good riddance to this parasite!

Tony

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Scott Pruitt’s Letter of Resignation

Mr. President, it has been an honor to serve you in the Cabinet as Administrator of the EPA. Truly, your confidence in me has blessed me personally and enabled me to advance your agenda beyond what anyone anticipated at the beginning of your Administration. Your courage, steadfastness and resolute commitment to get results for the American people, both with regard to improved environmental outcomes as well as historical regulatory reform, is in fact occurring at an unprecedented pace and I thank you for the opportunity to serve you and the American people in helping achieve those ends.

That is why it is hard for me to advise you I am stepping down as Administrator of the EPA effective as of July 6. It is extremely difficult for me to cease serving you in this role first because I count it a blessing to be serving you in any capacity, but also, because of the transformative work that is occurring. However, the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us.

My desire in service to you has always been to bless you as you make important decisions for the American people. I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence. I believe that same providence brought me into your service. I pray as I have served you that I have blessed you and enabled you to effectively lead the American people. Thank you again Mr. President for the honor of serving you and I wish you Godspeed in all that you put your hand to.

Your Faithful Friend,

Scott Pruitt

Dear Commons Community,

It was a busier than usual day at the Statue of Liberty yesterday which typically attracts about 20,000 visitors every July 4^th.  Members of Rise and Resist, a group formed after the 2016 presidential election, hung a banner calling for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished. Members of the group, angered by the Trump administration’s immigration policies, called the agency a “threat to our liberty and way of life.” 

Later in the day, a woman, Therese Okoumou,  started climbing the Statue in support of the Rise and Resist protest. Throughout the afternoon, Ms. Okoumou, waved a T-shirt and reclined in a crease of the statue’s robe. The copper is only about one-tenth of an inch thick, and officials feared she could damage the statue.  She was brought down at 6:30 pm by the New York Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

As we get ready to celebrate America’s birthday tomorrow, we will hear many renditions of “God Bless America” which was written by Irving Berlin 100 years ago.  The New York Times has an article this morning providing some of its history.  The article is written by Sheryl Kaskowitz, the author of “‘God Bless America’: The Surprising History of an Iconic Song.” Below is an excerpt.  Above is the first radio performance of the song by Kate Smith.

Tony

“[Irving Berlin fled Russia as a child.]  The 5-year-old and his family had traveled thousands of miles to escape. When they finally arrived on American soil, free from the marauders who had burned their house to the ground, the boy was placed in a holding pen with his brother and sisters, while immigration officials decided their fate.

From this story, a classic piece of music emerged. The family, fleeing religious persecution in Russia in 1893, was soon reunited and allowed to enter the country. And that little boy, born Israel Beilin, would grow up to become Irving Berlin. Twenty-five years after emigrating, the same year he became an American citizen, he composed “God Bless America.”

The song, which rings out with special fervor each Fourth of July as a kind of unofficial national anthem, is turning 100 this year, and at a fraught moment in America’s relations with would-be immigrants, it is worth remembering its origins. Berlin said he first heard the title phrase from his mother, who frequently spoke the words with an emotion he later said “was almost exaltation,” despite their poverty. His daughter Mary Ellin Barrett later wrote that Berlin meant every word: “It was the land he loved. It was his home sweet home. He, the immigrant who had made good, was saying thank you.”

It was a desire to serve his adopted country during World War I that impelled the 30-year-old Berlin, already a successful songwriter, to be naturalized as a citizen in February 1918. That May, he began his military service as an army private at Camp Upton in Yaphank, N.Y., where he was asked to write a soldier show as a fund-raiser. “God Bless America” was originally conceived as the finale for the revue, “Yip, Yip, Yaphank,” but Berlin ultimately decided not to include it. It was shelved and forgotten for 20 years, until he rediscovered the song and provided a revised version to the radio star Kate Smith, who sang it on Nov. 10, 1938, and reprised it weekly.

Berlin’s immigrant success story connected the song, in the period just after its premiere, to a burgeoning public appeal for tolerance in the face of the rise of Nazism in Europe. The first reference to the song in The New York Times describes a performance at a dinner sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, where religious leaders repudiated the “doctrine of race and hate” in totalitarian Europe and urged Americans not to let it happen within their own communities. Three months later, Berlin led a crowd in “God Bless America” after a speech against bigotry by Eleanor Roosevelt, in which she warned, “Fear arising from intolerance and injustice constitutes the chief danger to our country.”

The song also inspired anti-Semitic and xenophobic rhetoric aimed at Berlin, a Jew who dared to ask God to bless America. At a joint rally of the Ku Klux Klan and the pro-Nazi German American Bund in 1940, leaders called for a boycott of the song. A week later, an article mockingly titled “G-A-W-D Bless A-M-E-R-I-K-E-R!” appeared in the Bund’s newspaper; the author derided the song as reflecting the “attitude of the refugee horde.” Berlin faced fire on the left, as well: Woody Guthrie’s “God Blessed America For Me” was an angry protest against the complacency he found in Berlin’s lyrics. Guthrie soon changed the chorus to “This Land Is Your Land.”

Dear Commons Community,

Senator Lindsey Graham declared yesterday that “The idea that Russia did not meddle in our election is fake news.”   The South Carolina lawmaker made the remark during an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” when host Chuck Todd asked about President Trump’s forthcoming plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I’m concerned when the president tweets, you know, Russia denies they meddled in our election. When they say they didn’t meddle, they’re lying, so I’m glad the president is going to confront Putin,” Graham said. “Show him the evidence you got, Mr. President, because it’s overwhelming.” 

And when Todd pushed back with Trump’s seeming defense of Putin on social media, Lindsey stated: “In many ways this administration has been tough on Russia. We’ve armed the Ukraine, we’ve imposed sanctions, we’ve kicked out diplomats, but the idea that Russia did not meddle in our election is fake news. They did meddle in our election and they’re doing it again in 2018.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The images of Tess Thompson Talley of Texas standing proudly next to a dead giraffe bull in Africa have surfaced from a 2017 hunting trip, after the publication, Africland Post tweeted them. “White American savage who is partly a neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a black giraffe courtesy of South Africa stupidity,” read the June 16th tweet.  “Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share.”

In a June 2017 Facebook post by Thompson Talley, she wrote, “Prayers for my once in a lifetime dream hunt came true today! Spotted this rare black giraffe bull and stalked him for quite awhile. I knew it was the one. He was over 18 years old, 4,000 lbs and was blessed to be able to get 2,000 lbs of meat from him.”

The photos shocked those opposed to hunting and thousands signed various petitions in protest of trophy hunting, a practice The Humane Society calls “unethical, cruel, harmful and unsustainable.” In South Africa, where animals such as buffalo, elephants, and lion are often targeted, trophy hunting is a $2 billion-per-year industry, reports the BBC.  Some people maintain that money made from trophy hunting is funneled back into local communities and even conservation efforts, however, that claim is controversial. 

Tony